Saturday, May 13, 2017

ON MOTHER'S DAY LIGHT A CANDLE FOR THE MOTHER OF ANTINOUS

Happy Mother's Day! We honour the mother of Antinous, who gave birth to him in Bithynia Asia Minor (art by Priest Uendi).

Little is known of the origins of Antinous except that he was from the Bithynian city of Claudiopolis modern-day Bolu, Turkey.It has been speculated that he was a slave ... or even a provincial prince.

The OBELISK OF ANTINOUS,
which now stands atop the Pincian Hill in Rome, is covered in Egyptian
hieroglyphs which tell us much about Antinous the Gay God. But sadly,
there are huge gaps where the text has been worn away.

There is,
for example, an intriguing reference to the mother of Antinous which is
incomplete. Did a missing portion of the text talk about his biological
family back in Bithynia? We'll never know.

We wonder how many
brothers and sisters Antinous had? He must have had cousins and other
"ephebe" male relatives. How on earth could the mother of Antinous ever
have parted from him?

For that matter, no one knows what happened
to the earthly remains of Antinous after his tragic death in the Nile
in October 130 AD. Were they returned to his family in Bithynia? Did his
mother weep over them? Were they interred in a family crypt ... and
were the ashes of his mother interred beside his after she died?

This Mother's Day prayer was written by our beloved WARREN WILLIAMSON before his untimely death a couple of years ago. We join Warren in praising the Mother of Antinous the Gay God:

O
most glorious Mother of Antinous our God, accept our prayers and
present them to thy son our God, that He may, for thy sake, enlighten
and bring our souls unto the most holy city of Antinoopolis where we
shall dwell with thee and the Imperator God Hadrian forever and ever.
Be it so now and forever.